Bibliographie
All the Newspaper articles are retrieved from: British Library Newspapers, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/.
Ashurst, D. 'William Morris and the Volsungs.', in Old Norse made new. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2007, pp. 43-61.
Bloch Adolph. « Origine et évolution des blonds européens ». Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, Vol. 2 no 2 pp. 54-78, 1911.
Boyle, Frederik. “The Berserks”. Pall Mall Gazette, March 26, 1898.
Brown, Nancy Marie. Ivory Vikings. New York St Martin’s Griffin, 2015.
Cassie, Robert L. “The Norse Element in Low Land Scots”. The Scots Magazine, vol. XIII, no. 75, 1 Feb. 1894.
Carlyle Thomas, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, [1841], Scanned and proofed by Ron Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com). The text is taken from the printed "Sterling Edition" of Carlyle's Complete Works, in 20 volumes, https://www.fulltextarchive.com/pdfs/Heroes-and-Hero-Worship.pdf. Accessed 9 October 2020.
Coan Stephen. “H. Rider Haggard’s Hero Umslopogaas. Where is he Buried?” http://www.violetbooks.com/umslopogaas.html. Accessed on 21 January 2014.
Dubow Saul, Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Field Geoffrey G. “Nordic Racism”. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1977), pp. 523-540.
Etherington Norman A. “Rider Haggard, Imperialism, and the Layered Personality”. in Victorian Studies, Autumn, 1978, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 71-87 Published by Indiana University Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3826929.
Gobineau, Le Comte de. Histoire d’Ottar Jarl, Pirate Norvégien. Paris, Didier & Cie, 1879.
Gobineau, Le Comte de. Essai sur l’inégalité des races (1853-1855). Présentation de Hubert Juin. Paris : Éditions Pierre Belfond, 1967 (Livres 5 et 6) http://tybbot.free.fr/Tybbow/Livres/Gobineau/essai_inegalite_races_2.pdf. Accesssed 18 May 2020.
Gobineau, Arthur de. The Inequality of Races. Translated by Adrian Collins, London, William Hienemann, 1915. (This is the British edition in one volume of Gobineau’s work in several volumes written in French).
Grant Madison. The Passing of the Great Race; or the Racial Basis of European History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916.
Gregor A. James. “Nordicism Revisited”. Phylon, Vol. 22, No. 4 (4th Qtr., 1961), pp. 351-360.
Haggard H. R. Eric Brighteyes. [1891] Gutenberg project, no page number http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2721 3 June 2020. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2721/2721-h/2721-h.htm#link2H_4_0004 Accessed 10 June 2020.
Haggard H. R. King Solomon’s Mines. [1885] New York, Airmont Publishing Company, 1967.
Haggard H. R. She. London, Longmans, Green, and Co. 1887.
Haggard H. R. Allan Quatermain. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1891.
Haggard H. R. The Wanderer’s Necklace. 1914, Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.
Haggard H. R. The Days of my Life. Vol. II, London, Longmans Green and Co. Ltd, 1926.
Haggard H. ., The Days of my Life. Vol. I, 1926, A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0300131.txt, 2003. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300131.txt. Accessed 3 June 2020.
Haggard Lilias. The Cloak that I Left: A Biography of the Author Henry Rider Haggard. London, Hodder and Stoghton, 1951.
Hopper Edwin. The Ynglinga Saga, Heimskringla or The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway The Story of the Yngling Family from Odin to Halfdan the Black. https://pdf4pro.com/view/the-ynglinga-saga-edwin-hopper-442eec.html. Accessed June 10, 2020.
Hunter, Joyce A. Anger in the Air, Combating the Air Rage Phenomenon. London, Routledge, 2009.
Hutton Christopher. “Racial ideology as elite discourse: Nordicism and the visual in an age of mass culture”. Social Semiotics, 2017 Vol. 27, No. 3, 335–347.
Juginger Horst & Akerlund Andreas. Nordic Ideology between Religion and Scholarship. Berne, Peter Lang, 2013.
Kassis Dimitrios. Representations of the North in Victorian Travel literature. Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.
Katz Wendy R. Rider Haggard and the Fiction of Empire, A Critical Study of British Imperial Fiction. [1987] Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Knox, Robert. Races of Men. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard, 1850.
Lewis Spalding. “Romancing the Zulu: H. Rider Haggard, "Nada the Lily", and Salvage Ethnography”. in English in Africa, August 2012, Vol. 39, No. 2, South African Literary History Project: The End of Empire and the Making of Modern South Africa, pp. 69-84. Published by Rhodes University. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/23267874.
MacKenzie John, “Introduction Popular imperialism and the military” in John MacKenzie (ed.) Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850-1950, Studies in Imperialism, Manchester University Press, pp.1-24.
Marais, Ben. Colour: Unsolved Problem of the West. Cape Town, Howard B. Timmins, 1952.
Nordberg Andreas & Wallenstein Frederik. “‘Laughing I shall die!’ the total transformation of Berserkers and úlfhðenar in Old Norse society”. In Haldén Peter & Jackson Peter (eds.), Transforming Warriors: The Ritual Organization of Military Force, London, Routledge, 2016. pp.49-65.
Merriam Webster onlineDictionnary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nordicism accessed 14 May 2020.
Pocock Tom. Rider Haggard and the Lost Empire A Biography. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993.
Ripley William Z. The Races of Europe. New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1914.
Rausing Gad, “Beowulf, Ynglingatal and the Ynglinga Saga: fiction or history?” Fornvännen (Journal of Swedish Antiquarian research) 80, 163-178 http://kulturarvsdata.se/raa/fornvannen/html/1985_163. Ingår i: samla.raa.se.
Ritter E. A. Shaka Zulu. London, Penguin books [1955] 1985.
Samson Vincent. Les Berserkir. Les guerriers-fauves dans la Scandinavie ancienne, de l'Âge de Vendel au Vikings (VIᵉ -XIᵉ siècles). Villeneuve-D'Ascq, Les Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2011.
Sigurdson Erika Ruth. “Violence and Historical Authenticity: Rape (and Pillage) in Popular Viking Fiction”. Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Fall 2014), pp.249-267.
Speidel Michael. Ancient Germanic Warriors: Warrior Styles from Trajan’s Column to Icelandic Sagas. London, Routledge, 2004.
Speidel Michael. “Berserks: A History of Indo-European ‘Mad Warriors’”. In Journal of World History, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Fall, 2002), pp. 253-290.
Stiebel Lindy. Imaging Africa: Landscape in H. Rider Haggard’s African Romances. Westport Connecticut, London, Greenwood Press, 2001.
Wawn Andrew. The Vikings and the Victorians. Inventing the Old North in 19th Century Britain. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2002.
Wylie, Dan. Savage Delight: White Myths of Shaka. Pietermaritzburg, U. of Natal Press, 2000.
Yalom Marilyn. The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York, HarperCollins publishers Inc, 2005.
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Notes
Victorians developed this idea: “the Vik-ingr (Sic.) was indeed a terrible being. His stature was gigantic, his strength enormous. Inured to intense hardship on the rock-bound coast of Scandinavia, it was his proud boast never to take shelter under a roof or empty his horn of ale on the hearth of a house. Death in battle was what he aimed at, then alone could he enjoy the blessing of Valhalla” (The Hull Daily Packet, April 26, 1880). In the same article the Vikings are called “our Teutonic ancestors” and are said to be virile because “the very voluptuousness of the climate in the South of Europe and Asia tended in the direction of enervation and finally effeminacy.” Victorians also put the emphasis on the fair-hair of the Vikings such as when Harald Hadrada the last Viking chief died on the shore of England in 1066: “when the grand-head, with its floating fair hair, was laid low in the dust, and the waves of battle surged over it, there disappeared from sight for ever the last of the brave and fierce Vik-ings” (The Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, August 20, 1881). Haggard himself, as described by a journalist “Without being handsome, he is a fresh, comely-looking Englishman, with fair hair and frank blue eyes” (Nottingham Evening Post, 21 June 1888, p. 4).
These works range from Spalding Lewis who deals with “African Wolves and Norse Umslopogaas” (Lewis 79) in Nada the Lily (1892) arguing that the Europeanization of Umslopogaas is a “means of accessing the ethnic past of Europe” (80), to Norman A. Etherington who states that Haggard uses the European past (the Viking Age) and the African present (the Zulu kingdom) to convey his message (82), not forgetting Dan Wylie for whom Haggard puts forward the fighting skills of the Zulus as they correspond to a European conception of ancient warriors (151).
In the old Sea-kings too, what an indomitable rugged energy! Silent, with closed lips, as I fancy them, unconscious that they were specially brave; defying the wild ocean with its monsters, and all men and things; -progenitors of our own Blakes and Nelsons! No Homer sang these Norse Sea-kings (Carlyle 38).
Examples are words ending in ‘ton’, ‘by’ or ‘thorpe’, and others like ‘sky’ or ‘window’ in the English language. To these, one can add pronouns such as ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’, and of course everyday elements such as the days of the week (Norse god Tui, son of Odin gave the word Tuesday, Woden, Germanic equivalent of Odin, gave Wednesday, Thor gave Thursday, while Frigga, Odin’s wife gave Friday).
One example among many others states that: “It is perhaps not very generally known that the Lowland Scottish dialect contains a large proportion of Norse words. This Scandinavian leaven is especially noticeable in the speech of the dwellers on the east and north-east coasts, districts which suffered most from the Viking irruptions. Many of the invaders became incorporated in the population and the influence upon the language is still plainly traceable” (Cassie 225).
“Wild, rude, and barbarous even as were the deeds of our forefathers in the days of the centuries long gone by, yet a halo of romance surrounds them, and our blood is stirred within us as we think of the ‘derring do’ of ancient times. We delight to dwell on the past. And why should we not? As the association of our childhood, in connection perhaps with a mother’s teaching and example, have oft-times a spirit rousing and humanising effect in our mature years, so the traditions of the daring deeds of a people from whom we are sprung point ever with a silent finger to the road of action along which as a nation we shall do well to walk, striving to avoid the evil and to emulate the good” (The Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, Sat. August 20, 1881).
“Discovery of Viking ship in Cumberland” (The Edinburgh Evening News, Fri. January 14, 1881); “The Viking Hoard in Skye” (Inverness Courier, 30 Jan. 1891, p. 3); “The Vikings' Buried Treasure” (Edinburgh Evening News, 20 Jan. 1891, p. 4). A Gold Cross was found in Denmark “Northern Antiquities” (Morning Post, 14 Nov. 1849, p. 2).
Such as in “Kings and Queens at Derby”: “The dauntless AEthelfielda, the daughter of Alfred the Great, would come on the scene in daring conflict with the Vikings and Berserkers, from whom her sword delivered the town in the dim days of 918, when Derby was the metropolis of the Royal Mercian shire (Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 15 May 1891, p. 4).
Haggard toured Iceland in 1888 and nearly died when his ship sank on the journey back (Polock 78). He did some extensive scholarly research work to elaborate a plausible Saga in Eric Brighteyes (1891): “Haggard’s novel is a remarkable illustration of just how inward acknowledge of Icelandic sagas could be developed in 1890 by a dedicated enthusiast of the old north, even one who was in no real sense a professional philologist” (Wawn 333).
The newspaper article “In the Land of the Vikings” states “To the dweller in North Briton it is doubtful if any land possesses a deeper interest than that isle-girdled country beyond the German Ocean, from whence in the dim and distant past, those grand old pirates came over in their frail Viking ships to plunder and harry Scotland” (Dundee Courier, 19 July 1889, p. 6). Other examples include: “The tourist traffic to Norway” (Dundee Courier, 12 May 1892), “The Land of the Vikings, a Peep at their Fjords and Valleys” (Leeds Mercury, 20 Aug. 1881), “The Land of the Vikings Our trip to Norway” (Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 8 June 1895, p. 4) or “A wild ride through Iceland” (Isle of Wight Observer, 7 Dec. 1895, p. 6).
Thomas Carlyle, to go further, was amongst the early promoters of the Viking craze that permeated Victorian society. In his famous and later controversial work (when Nazi ideologists took hold of it), On heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in history (1841), and more particularly in his first chapter (Lecture 1 delivered on May 5, 1840) which is devoted to “The Hero as divinity. Odin, Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology”, he states that the “Hero as divinity” is “the oldest primary form of Heroism” (5). He reminds his English audience that Norwegians who worshipped Odin in the eleventh century where “the men whose blood still runs in our veins” and “whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways” (19). Friedrich Nietzsche saw parallels between Carlyle’s conception of the Hero and his own Übermensch, particularly along the line that heroes must be admired as they use their physical strength and skills to fulfil their destiny. Viking music too became popular, such as the works composed by Edward Elgar.
“Thus, what is more ridiculous than this opinion, shared by many, which gives the Northern barbarian credit for destroying civilization! These unfortunate barbarians are represented in the 5th century as delirious monsters, which, dashing as starving wolves on the admirable roman organization, tears it apart just for the sake of it, breaks it just to break it, and destroys it just to produce ruins” (Gobineau Essai 163 my translation).
“Facing this despicable being [the Roman], who was the barbarian? A man with blond hair, with a white and pinkish complexion, with large shoulders, great hight, strong as Alcaeus, brave like Theseus, skilful and flexible, fearing nothing in the world, and death least of all. This Leviathan possessed ideas on all things, whether they were right or wrong, they were reasoned, intelligent and were ready to be spread. Within his nationality, he had fed his mind with the essence of a strict but refined religion, with a sagacious political life and a glorious history” (Gobineau Essai 164). Alcaeus means strong in ancient Greek. It was the name given to Herakles by his parents who later changed his name to please goddess Hera.
He calls the Scandinavians “Normans” whom he distinguishes from the “French Normans” (from Frankish language Nortman and old Norse norðmaðr both meaning Northmen) descendants of Earl Rollo the Viking who was given land in the kingdom of the Franks in order to stop his raids in 911 AD, now known as Normandy. The Victorian press uses different names along with Vikings (Vi-kings, Vee-kings), Sea-Kings, Norsemen, Scandinavians and “Such were the ancestors of the Normans, or Northmen” (The Hull Daily Packet, April 26, 1880).
He then praises their discoveries: amongst their most brilliant claims to fame is the discovery of the American continent in the 10th century (Gobineau Essai 266). He also states that Scandinavian countries in the Middle Ages held a prestigious rank amongst all the dominating races of Europe (Essai 266). He further develops the idea that the more the ancient warriors were of a pure race, the less they were tempted to remain lazily in their homes, when so many marvellous adventures would lead them towards the Southern countries (Essai 267).
Likewise, in his Story of Ottar-Jarl (1879), Gobineau traces his own ancestry to a Viking chief, Ottar (a descendant of Odin!) who owned land in Normandy and died fighting in England. He once again states that the Vikings were no savage people: “They were heroes, but self-serving heroes, and in no way, as people wrongly think, say and write, barbarians whose only purpose was to destroy” (Gobineau, Histoire 9)
“The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers, and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant character of the Alpines. Chivalry and knighthood, and their still surviving but greatly impaired counterparts, are peculiarly Nordic traits, and feudalism, class distinctions, are race pride among Europeans are traceable for the most part to the North” (Grant 198).
“In an age which came to extol the state and subordinate citizenry to nation, war became the crucial determinant of national history. In the personification of that state, war constituted a coming of age, a means to maintain moral stature and physical integrity, an anodyne against racial, spiritual and organic degeneracy” (MacKenzie 2).
This form of “going native” underlines that fighting and war are consensual to unite the “savage” and the “civilised” man just like Thomas Carlyle who expresses the idea that “It is doubtless very savage that kind of valor of the old Northmen” (37). The fear of the fin-de-siècle in the 19th century, in a sort of “end of the Roman Empire Armagedon” is one of Haggard’s interests: “the rise and fall of Empires in a kind of Darwinian cycle of change and flux, which further explains the littering of his African topography with ruins” (Stiebel 95).
“Conquering races may be inferior as poets, artists and writers to those they subdue, but the latter would not have been subdued had they retained the manly virtues that made their forebears great. National greatness can only continue to thrive whilst it has fighting strength for its foundation. War, though it may mean a hard struggle for national existence, is the greatest purifier to the race or nation that has reached the verge of over refinement, of excessive civilization. That verge is the edge of a precipice at whose base lie millions in every form and phase of mental and bodily decrepitude” (Wolseley 20).
Henry Rider Haggard was not the least of the icelandophiles: “Rider was a great lover of Icelandic sagas and the chief reason of the journey was to visit the site of the story of Burnt Njal” (Haggard Lilias 139). Even the press validate his Scandinavian origins: “Rider Haggard looks every inch a Norseman, as he leans back in his roomy writing-chair, with the wand of ‘umzimbeet’ wood lying across a half written sheet of the Icelandic romance of the saga period upon which he is now engaged” (The Citizen – Gloucestershire - Wed. Sept. 19 1888) or “Mr Rider Haggard is a worthy descendant of the Vikings” (Newcastle Courant Fri., 21 Sept. 1888). His Norse Saga, Eric Brighteyes (1891) was praised by the press as it was acknowledged to be close to the original sagas, but with even more talent: “he is showing us what a saga would have been had any ‘skald’ been gifted with the literary talent of a Rider Haggard” and in the same article “It is a tale, like the ‘Nibelungen Lied’ and other sagas, of fair women and brave men”(Derby Mercury, Wed.17 June 1891 p.4). “Mr Haggard appears in the guise of a Northern sagaman” as he attempts “the resuscitation of an ancient and alien literary form” without sparing “no pain in ‘getting up’ his material” as “He saturated his mind -saturated is the word- with the sanguinary lore of Scandinavian antiquity” (Pall Mall Gazette, 25 June 1891, p. 3).
Knox states that there were men who were superior physically and mentally to others: they are the Scandinavians/Saxons (45) (he does not distinguish them). He writes: “At no period, did they [the Romans] conquer the Saxon or true German, that is, Scandinavian, race” (40) and later adds, “Such were the ancient Scandinavian or Saxon, called German occasionally by some Roman writers” (51). For him, it is a race of seamen (41), part of them are “rulers of waves” and “the race still hopes ultimately to be masters of the world” (42). In his view: “In all climes, and under all circumstances, the Saxons are a tall, powerful, athletic race of men; the strongest, as a race, on the face of the globe. They have fair hair, blue eyes, and so fine a complexion, that they may almost be considered the only absolutely fair race on the face of the globe” (43).
A few examples of the positive Victorian press reviews of the novel include the following: “sufficient to say that the story King Solomon’s Mines is one of the most fascinating pieces of fiction that have appeared for many a long year” (“Mr. Rider Haggard and South Africa” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 19 Jan. 1895, p. 8); “one of the most delightful books that has appeared for some long time” and in the same article “In his present tale he has ‘struck’ a vein which, it is proves fertile, promises a large amount of intelligent pleasure to the reading public” (Morning Post, 24 Oct. 1885, p. 2); “The new treasure story that is attracting so much attention” (Star -Guernsey- 27 Oct. 1885 p.6) ; “Mr Haggard’s wonderful story, ‘King Solomon’s Mines,’ is the most exciting of its kind ever published in a modern language” (Standard, 10 Nov. 1885, p. 7).
“Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow, he reminded me of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I knew a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by the companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that was the big man's name, is of Danish blood” (Haggard KSM 15-16).
“All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces ahead. “Infadoos,” I said at length, “who made this road?”. “It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even the wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old enough to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but the king suffers no grass to grow upon it.” “And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we have passed on the road?” I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like sculptures that we had seen. “My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings. We know not who wrote them.” (Haggard KSM 88)
“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the Ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?” Thomas Babington Macauley, Lays of Ancient Rome, 1842.
This stunning victory of a native nation over modern European troops shocked Europeans and was only matched by a somewhat similar disaster brought about by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors on the 7th of cavalry at the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 in the plains of Montana. Isandlwana was seen in Britain as an incomprehensible and illogical conclusion to the beginning of a military operation that should have been a mere triumphant march.
Berserkir is the plural of Berserker in English and German (Berserkr in Old Norse, Berserkur in Icelandic, Bäsärk in Swedish). Promoted in Victorian imagination by Charles Kingsley and Walter Scott, the Berserker and his fury is so well known that a journalist writes in an article on Berserkir: “I have not described the Berserk fury because it is well enough known” (Boyle) this is why the expression is clear even when used in a political context such as in an article entitled “Scotch Home Rule in the Making” which refer to those “who did not share the ‘Berserker fury’ of the Scotch liberals” (Pall Mall Gazette, 31 July 1890). It is obvious to journalists that Berserkir are common knowledge in their time: “The youth of Britain is much interested in Berserkers-so would any other youth be if it had read as much about them. While Charles Kingsley lives in his stories that order of men will not be forgotten” (The Northern Echo, Tues. October 23, 1900). The term seems to be so well known that British charging cavalrymen are compared to “Berserkers” at Mons in 1914 (The Manchester Courier, Wed. August 26, 1914), while British pilots are “Berserkers on the air” (“Dare-Devil airmen” Nottingham Evening Post Mon. June 11, 1917), Such comparisons would be clear for former young Victorian boys who now had become adult fighters. The “Norse champions” were described as “half-mythical heroes, who, when the fit came upon them, howled like wild beasts, foamed at the mouth, tore their helmets with their teeth, and were in popular superstition at such times proof against fire and steel, dreadful when roused, but mild when appeased” (The Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, Sat. August 20, 1881).
The Lewis Chessmen, treasured in the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland, were found in the 19th century on the Isle of Lewis: “They constitute the largest known collection of Western medieval chessmen and one that offers an intriguing entrée into Nordic society” (Yalom 152). They are an opportunity for the Victorian press to remind its reader of the presence of Scandinavians on their shores: “It would appear most probable that the chessmen and the draughtsmen discovered in the isle of Lewis formed part of the stock of an Iceland Kaup-mann, or merchant, who carried these articles to the Hebrides, or Iceland, for the sake of traffic” and “The material they are composed of, the peculiar forms of some of the figures, the costume, and the locality, all conspire to point towards the north as their birthplace” (Morning Post, 27 Oct. 1841). This statement is still valid twenty-years later (as well as today): “Mr Stuart thought that Dr Wilson had been entirely successful in rescuing these relics from the Scandinavian origin attributed to them, on considerations touching the style of ornamentation, which seemed so like that of the Norman era, as well as relating to the armour, dress, and contour of the figures, which resembled other remains of art in this country of the twelfth century” (Inverness Courier, 13 Feb. 1862, p. 5).
“Odin could make his enemies in battle blind, or deaf, or terror-struck, and their weapons so blunt that they could no more but than a willow wand; on the other hand, his men rushed forwards without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild bulls, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon themselves. These were called Berserker” (Hopper).
They were sailors whose qualities inspired the Navy. They are “berserkers sea-wolves” (Leicester Chronicle, 18 Oct. 1884, p. 8) who lived in “The days of the Sea Kings” (Leeds Mercury, 12 Mar. 1892). The discovery of a Viking Ship on the burial site of a chief in Gokstad (Norway) attracted much attention in Victorian Britain (Dundee Courier, 18 June 1880; Edinburgh Evening News, 19 Jan. 1883, p. 2; Newcastle Courant, 5 Dec. 1891; Nottinghamshire Guardian, 30 July 1892, p. 5 etc.), as well as the replica of a Langskip ship which sailed in 1893 from Norway to the United Sates to attend the World Fair in Chicago ("The Voyage of the Viking Ship" Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 15 June 1893, p. 5) and was cheerfully welcomed in New York harbour (“Arrival of the Viking ship at New York”, York Herald, 17 June 1893, p. 8.), and Chicago (Morning Post, 13 July 1893, p. 5), before it sank the following year (Portsmouth Evening News, 7 Sept. 1894, p. 2).
This character was probably inspired by Egill Skallagrimsson (904-995) an Icelandic poet (skald), Viking warrior and farmer author of Egill’s saga who could display Berserker frenzy.
“Then my eyes grew dark and I drew near to death from very shame and bitterness. But of a sudden something leaped up in my heart, fire rages before my eyes and voices in my ears called on to war and vengeance. I was Baresark – and like hay hands I burst my cords. My axe hung on the wainscot. I snatched it thence, and of what befell I know this alone, that when the madness passed, eight men lay stretched out before me, and all the place was but a gore a blood” (Haggard Eric, chapter VIII np).
Haggard promotes the same values as attributed to Vikings by the Press of his time: “But they are legends of men who were indeed, as the old songs say, ‘the bravest of the brave.’ Not timorous Provincials of the Roman Empire tell these extraordinary facts, with other horrors attributed to ‘the Dane’, but Vikings themselves” (The Northern Echo, Tues. October 23, 1900)
Townsend also asked Haggard: “You are aware that the Berserks when they left their Aryan home on the Northern slope of the Hindoo Koosh” [high mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan] had taken with them “the dangerous knowledge of its quality of producing a temporary fury in battle” (Haggard The Days 27).
Joyce A. Hunter, quoting Michael Speidle (p.228) posits that “In the nineteenth century, Zulu warriors went into fierce trance state to achieve battle rage. They considered this ability to summon up a condition of rage their secret weapon and used it to terrify their enemies on the battlefield. We cannot know whether Zulus or Berserkers had any chemical help heightening their eerie battle trances; that would be in the nature of trade secret.” (Hunter 156).
Umslopogaas fought at the famous battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, a Zulu victory of king Cetshwayo kaMpande, Shaka’s nephew against the British army. The reader thus understands that Umslopogaas is such a great warrior, as he is even chief of the elite Nkomabakosi regiment. It is interesting that Ignosi also belonged to that regiment under king Cetshwayo, which can lead us to suppose that he also fought at Isandlwana, perhaps under the orders of Umslopogaas. The latter’s fighting qualities are displayed later in the novel when the reader learns he has defeated and killed a hundred enemies and is nicknamed ‘the slaughterer’, (Haggard Quatermain 15).
It is interesting to see the analogy between Umslopogaas and Mogobozi, a warrior from the Zulu oral tradition: “After Mgobozi received his first flesh wound, he went berserk and, with the murderous agility of a leopard, he became a raging bull” (Ritter 159) and “the berserk warrior was beyond reasoning” (Ritter 159). Further on in the epic: “Mgobozi went berserk. He was the personification of a battle-mad war-god. He vaulted at and among his enemies with such utter reckless fury and death-dealing agility that they frequently scattered” (Ritter 316) and “Mgobozi stood alone. His mouth was flecked with bloody foam. His madly staring eyes were red as blood: so he waited with heaving chest for the last rush” (Ritter 317). “With a yell the Ndwadwes flung themselves at him, but the old lion met them like a pack of African wolves (wild dogs). Again, and again he killed them right and left” (Ritter 317).
One can note that in French, a sword is feminine: “une épée”. The femininity of a weapon is enhanced as Haggard’s character of Umslopogaas is inspired by the son of a Swazi King M’hlopekazi (Coan), nicknamed Slapogazi whose battle-axe “He cherished as he might a wife, saying that she was evidently a woman as she pried so deep into things – that she was clearly a chieftainess because so many men fell down before her” (Lilias Haggard 55). The Zulu battle-axe echoes that of Skallagrim the Berserker in Eric Brighteyes, which seems to have been inspired by the genuine and one of the most accomplished Norse Saga: Njáls Saga (13th century).
Olivier is a fictitious knight whose sword is named Hauteclaire, faithful friend and confident to Charlemagne’s’ nephew, who is said to be wise while Roland is said to be brave.
The Victorian press spreads this idea such as found in an article entitled “The Danes in Lancashire”: “A victorious people have always an intense and widely spreading influence over the nations which feel the effects of their victories and conquests. An inferior race never withstood a superior one. The fact that the Danes gained not only an ascendancy in many parts of England during the Anglo-Saxon dynasties, but even the government of them all, is a proof that they were at that period, a race of individuals superior to the natives of the land” and further down in the article “The Romans were so much superior to the aboriginal Britons as the English of the present day are to the Afghans and Sikhs. The Saxons were an improvement on the Romanised Celt; while on the Saxon again the Dane or Northman was an advance in superiority, and a great element of improvement” (Preston Chronicle, 22 Jan. 1853).
See Wendy R. Katz who has a whole chapter on Haggard’s racism (Katz ch.6 131-152).
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